Ministry of Housing

Ministry of Housing

Context

The Ministry of Housing's (the Ministry) principal functions are to:

• provide policy advice on the rental housing market in relation to the residential Tenancies Act 1986
• administer the Residential Tenacies Act 1986, including providing information, advice and a dispute resolution service for tenants and landlords
• receiving , investing and refunding residential tenancy bond monies
• administering the State housing Appeals Authority
• providing purchase and monitoring advice to the Government on Housing New Zealand Corporation.

The Ministry is to be expanded shortly through the addition of a range of functions from other agencies. The Ministry's priority is to stabilise and upgrade its infrastructure and desktop environment and ensure the integrity of its current data. This work continues to impact on the organisations capacity and ability to undertake e-government projects in the short term.

Ministry / Department E-government Initiatives

• Website redevelopment once organisational restructure completed
• Data cleaning of Tenancy Application to enable development of online services

Summary

Ready Access: Overall the Ministry's website is of an average standard. The Ministry provides ready access to valuable information for landlords and tenants through Tenancy Services. Ongoing metadata maintenance is necessary to ensure ready access to the Ministry's information and services via the portal.

Alignment: The Ministry uses the Internet and networks extensively to provide access to information and services. Internal systems are being improved so that online services can begin to be made available. The Internet is used to encourage participation in government through advising of seminars and inviting submissions when appropriate.

Internet and Communications Technology

The Ministry has a single website mainly used to provide information for tenants and landlords. Part of the website is devoted to providing information about the Ministry such as corporate documents, statistics, and reports. The other part of the website is for Tenancy Services, and aims to meet the information needs of people who let or rent residential property.

The Tenancy Services part of the website presents information including resources that can be downloaded, information about services provided such as mediation, related legislation, fees, and contact information. Some links to other agencies are available, such as a link to the Inland Revenue Department for information about taxation on rental property.

A number of forms can be downloaded for people to complete before posting to the Ministry. Information is provided in multiple languages.

The Ministry gathers statistical information on market rents from bond applications, and provides this information on its website for the public. Rent information is also shared monthly with Statistics New Zealand (SNZ), Victoria University and Housing New Zealand, using electronic file transfers. The Ministry uses XML when sharing data with Statistics New Zealand, to ensure they can easily integrate it with their own information.

The Ministry uses a single business system called the Tenancy Application to record bond information and tribunal application information, which includes bond, tenant, landlord, property, tribunal and mediation details. When people send new bond information to Tenancy Services, the paper forms are electronically scanned into the Tenancy Application.

A three-year project will remove information duplication and inaccuracy in the Tenancy Application. The Ministry will need to complete this project, make future investment and build capability and capacity, before online services can be offered. Online services could include bond processing to augment the paper forms currently used, or online tracking of applications to the Tenancy Tribunal. The Ministry is considering a landlord unique identifier to facilitate online service delivery.

The Ministry has 22 local offices throughout New Zealand. Staff in the local offices use the Tenancy Application to access information they need for mediation purposes.

The Ministry will redevelop its intranet for the new Department and have decided that it will fully comply with the Government Web Guidelines.

Ready Access to Information and Services

Metadata

The Ministry has 23 metadata records. Metadata is well written and keeps a general audience in mind. It is at an appropriate level of detail. The Ministry has valuable advice for landlords and tenants on its website.

At present, several of the Ministry's links on the Portal are broken. Fixing these will improve the Ministry provision of ready access to its information and services through the portal. Additional metadata could also provide access to a wider range of the Ministry's information and services.

Website Assessment

Websites assessed during May 2004 included

www.minhousing.govt.nz , and www.minhousing.govt.nz/tenancy/

The two sections of the site were assessed separately.

Overall, the website is of an average standard. Although there is room for improvement to the main section, the Tenancy Services section of the site is of a good standard. Strengths of the Tenancy Services section are in accessibility and information delivery. The usability of the site as a whole could be enhanced.

Key quality issues noted during the assessment included:

• Good range, depth and presentation of information content.
• Usability and site navigation could be improved for easier use.
• The broken search engine prevents people from finding information easily.
• Most required email addresses are missing or were not answered during the assessment.
• Missing accessibility features such as 'invisible' links direct to content, access keys and style sheet problems may impede some physically impaired people's access.
• Some broken links prevent people from accessing certain content.
• More links to related content on the site would be useful.
• Some documents are in PDF only, excluding people who are unable or unwilling to read this format.
• Housing NZ Corporation monitoring content could be added to the website.
• Contact details could be more specific to enable responsive handling of enquiries.

Alignment With E-government Goals

Convenience and Satisfaction

In addition to the website and local offices where people can access information and services, the Ministry operates a call centre that provides advice and assistance. Call centre staff inform and advise tenants and landlords, often regarding disputes. Where possible, call centre staff direct people to the website. The most commonly sought information, such as application forms or market rent rates, is available online.

Call centre staff can access the Tenancy Application to help answer and provide advice to callers.

Integration and Efficiency

Most electronic information sharing is currently with Statistics New Zealand.

The present Statement of Intent outlines the need to improve information integration with some agencies, but any information sharing needs to be done within the confines of privacy legislation.

The organisational restructuring will put greater emphasis on policy development within the Ministry. A greater focus on policy development will call for closer strategic planning with other agencies in the social sector. In turn, more integrated information sharing will be required.

Participation

The Ministry uses its website for consultation purposes when calling for submissions. For example, the Internet will be used to publicise and request submissions to the review of the Tenancy Act.

The Internet is used successfully to publicise seminars the Ministry organises.

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